Monday, July 2, 2001		Article

Select your fonts carefully

From officious Times type to more racy Brush Script type, things can be expressed in many ways, says MPS Ahuja

PRESENTATION matters. It matters a lot when you 'sell' yourself in front of an interview board or for that matter, you want viewers of your Web site to stay longer with your pages, view and grasp what you have written, with ease.

Fonts of various sizes can change the way you want to say the things. In writing, that is. From officious Times type to more racy Brush Script type, things can be said in many ways thereby lending a different meaning to the content. So choose your fonts judiciously for your application:

The main categories of fonts are:

1. Serif: Those are identified by serifs-small feet like horizontal strokes on every letter. Serif fonts have better readability in print media. Serif fonts are often the default fonts in various software programs. The examples include Times/Times New Roman, Garamond, Book Antiqua, and Century Schoolbook.

2. Sans serif: These fonts do not have horizontal strokes or feet. Sans serif is easier on the eyes when looking at the screen. If your application is to be read from the screen primarily, use a sans serif font, in upper and lower cases. These fonts are very popular for body text on the Web, as well as for CBT packages. Examples are Arial, Verdana, Tahoma, and Helvetica fonts.

3. Monospace: These fonts remind you of typewriter, where all letters take equal space. It is the font of the choice when preparing your college reports and thesis e.g. Courier and Courier New.

4. Fantasy: These decorative fonts are used mainly for headings or fancy designs. Examples include Webdings, Wingdings, and Wingdings2 and Whimsy fonts.

5. Cursive: These fonts resemble handwritings. Appropriate for headings but should not be used for long body texts. Examples of cursive fonts are Brush Script MT, Boulevard, and Signature.

One should not mix too many fonts in a page. Use a single font consistently and use a different font occasionally if you want to highlight something. If you are preparing a Web page, HTML can stack up fonts. For instance, you can write <FONT face="arial, Helvetica ">

A browser then scans the font face specification left to right and enables the first face encountered that's available on that system. In the above example, if Arial font is not available, then the browser would look for Helvetica. If that font is found it is used, otherwise the default font is used. Font names are case insensitive, that is it does not matter if they are typed either in upper or lower case, as shown in the previous example.

In the new generation of browsers, you can also mention category name such as Sans serif in the font face list. In such a scenario, if the font faces listed earlier in the statement are not found, the first available Sans serif font (or Serif, if you have mentioned that) is used, failing which the default font is used.

If you are writing for the Web, remember that there are only two fonts, which are native to Windows as well as Macintosh - Times and Courier. The native Sans serif font on Windows include Arial, Century Gothic and Verdana whereas on Macintosh it is Helvetica. You should always stack up fonts, if you do not want your layout to go haywire.

Fonts that are native to Windows OS and Mac OS are given as under:

Arial, Arial Black, Arial Narrow, Arial Rounded MT Bold, Book Antiqua, Bookman Old Style, Century Gothic, Century Schoolbook, Courier, Courier New, Garamond, Times New Roman, Verdana

Chicago, Courier, Helvetica, Monaco, New York, Palatino, Times.

Use limited colour range for your Web pages or CBT screens. Do not use more than 3 or 4 main colours. The colours should complement each other. The browsers can see just 256 colours. And there are 216 colours that are common to different browsers' palette. Make sure to choose a browser safe colour. Do remember that bright colours like red and yellow cause more eye fatigue and should be used sparingly. Use them to attract attention to some sign or symbol - not to a large area.

The point size should not be less than 12. At the same time, beware that the text in bigger point size looks amateurish. Yet, if you expect a good percentage of users above 40 years of age - move to 14-point size. Ditto for CBTs you are preparing for kids below 10. In HTML, font size range is from 1 to 7. HTML size 1 corresponds to 8 pt., 2 (10 pt.), 3 (12 pt.), 4 (14 pt.), 5 (18 pt.), 6 (24pt) and size 7 corresponds to 36 pt.

Please note that even if you set the same font size for different font families, they don't look the same size. If mixing font families, do not try to match them by increasing or decreasing font size. This is because different browsers on different platforms give varying results and screens do not look the same on all platforms.

When viewing on the screen, people tend to scan rather than read each and every word. Reading from the screen causes fatigue. That is why, you should endeavour to write less than half the words of what you would normally write for a printed document. Try to highlight important words in a paragraph. You can use 'Bold' style for headings but never for the body text. One big irritant is blinking text. If at all you decide to blink text, here's a piece of advice - blink either a single letter or at most one full word - never more than that. A full sentence blinking could spell disaster.